Month: June 2014

Strange thing happened this evening – we tacked. First time since Grenada so that’s about 1,900nm on the starboard tack which has been perfect for us. No messing about with running backstays every five minutes and from that point of view we love the space that the ocean offers. In fact since St Martin I would think we have made about 10 adjustments to the sails, just reefing, as we have held the same point of sail relative to the wind all the way, a fairly close reach. Motored today from 0600-1700, changed time zones +1 hour (supposedly every 15

All going well here since 9am and currently heading 040T at 4-5kn in 10kn wind on our way to hitting the Bermuda-Azores rumb line. Expect to turn toward Horta in under 48 hours when wind swings further west. Today’s problem child is the chest freezer which decided to stop doing it’s job. I dug out about 16 thawed chicken breasts only to find the whole freezer contents to be covered in ‘chicken juice’ as there was a hole in the bag. Other vacu-pack steaks etc were washed & transferred frozen to a smaller freezer but all of the chicken and

Hard fought miles. Our boat has gone quiet, food from tins, sleep is poor, bilge alarm goes every hour and this is our 11th day on a fairly close starboard reach. Our waterfront apartment as was has been transformed into a noisy, shaking, crashing condo over by the brickworks with a 24/7 earthquake thrown in. It’s midnight local time and although things are supposed to have eased they haven’t. Wind cycles through 13 to 22kn all the time and we are mostly on a reach in 18-22kn making about 6kn. Our cage is being rattled! Woke up this morning and

At home we think of High’s as light breezes, flowers, honey bees, barbeques and days on the beach…let us introduce you to an Azores High! There is good reason that it’s stable at 1032mb it’s powerful. Today’s new issue consisted of a drawer under the chart table which holds heavy tools smashing it’s plastic latch and launching into the saloon. We redistributed the heavy stuff, took a latch from a cabinet elsewhere and managed to close it again so we can still get to the forward part of the ship! Close reaching all day in 18-22kn SSE wind at 7.5

‘There’s got to be a trick, how do you think he does it….sure plays a mean pinball’ Awoke to an overcast sky, first in ages, and a radar screen smattered with squalls, probably about eight at any time. As we edged the front of each squall we were catapulted to 8 knots, shot across the face and out the other side, then wallowed in a turbulent sea making about 3 knots until we crossed the next when again we were pinged forward. And so it continued for around 3 hours, ping, ca-ching, prrrrt, ching – we were the pinball. Come

Crossing an ocean at 4 knots made me think ‘well what if we’re here for Christmas?’ Mmmm let’s have a look at our provisions? We have Christmas Pudding (yay!), cream (whooo!), red wine (waheey!) and brandy (weeey!), roast potatoes (yippeey!), peas and carrots (yeey!), no bread sauce (booo!), no sausages (boooo!), no Queens speech (hoooraay!), no raiders of the lost ark number 17 (hoooraay!), and we have turkey (yeeeehhheeey!) Hang on, turkey? Use by date mid June (booooo!). So instead of the odd plastic bucket floating past we need to find a turkey and a string of sausages….closest substitute available